They Were Dressed in Black
by FalseEyelashes
Summary: Every hero has his day. And eventually his eloquent, disastrous downfall. AU from OotP on.


**They Were Dressed in Black**

**Disclaimer: **Dream on, dream on. I am not JK Rowling and the characters, ideas, settings and background principles used within this story are not my own. It grieves me to say it, but its true. The Harry Potter universe is not my own. Please, no legal action.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, violence, language, sexuality)

**Summary: **Every hero has his day. And eventually his eloquent, disastrous downfall. AU; from OotP on.

**Author's Note: **Well, here we go. I have been churning this plot around for the better part of three months, and it has finally, just finally, coalesced. What we have here today is my saga of the two Wizarding wars. We have the first rise of Lord Voldemort, and the second. And we have what comes after. This is my huge attempt to tell my own version of it all. Be warned, it is AU. _The Half-Blooded Prince_ has nothing at all to do with this story, seeing as I started it before it was released. This story will rely contingently upon secondary characters from the series and some OCs. Please, be kind, and feedback, as always, is very much appreciated. So, without further ado, here it is…

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_**- Prologue - **_

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_**Come, see / real flowers / of this painful world. **_

_**- Basho**_

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By the time you read this, you'll already have heard the news. You might have already have forgotten it.

I'll tell it to you anyway.

But just to share, and possibly defend, we were great once. All of us. We once were great. And now, nowwe no longer exist.

You already know this story. You already know.

You lived it.

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_- January 1, 2000 -_

The dust won't settle for days. They all knew this much as true.

A crooked foundation with crumbling brick left behind as a memorial. Charred trees and parched, dead grass. Sticks, sticks they merely seem to the naked eye, the Muggle eye, littered the field of debris, cracked down the middle, splintered in half. Embedded in the earth.

Every hero has his day. And eventually his eloquent, disastrous downfall.

The rubble lay; the wrought iron gate broken, twisted, dull, dead, deceased. Shards of metal jutting out like a broken ribcage. In the distance, a castle smoldered, burning, burning, burning without a single sign of flame. A sign for Hogsmeade hung upon a post, cracked in half, creaking in the nonexistent wind.

The distant beat of helicopters could be heard from up above. Camouflage uniforms stood out stark against the gray afternoon sky. The dead lie burnt, charred and ruined.

Snow fell silently, mixing with the dropping ash; the two dancing together, mixing and melding until the two became indistinguishable, no longer white, but gray. Dead, gray, lifeless, quiet.

And there it lay. Every hero has his day. And whispered on the wind, the unasked question.

_Where did we go wrong? _

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_- July 25, 1998 -_

It was on everyone's lips. It was on the cover of every newspaper. It was even covered in the Muggle news, with clever euphemisms barring its true meaning and impact.

The Boy Who Lived had taken his last breath. The Boy Who Lived was six feet under. The Boy Who Lived was now The Boy Who Died.

Harry Potter was dead.

Some whispered the four words to each other in earnest, walking side-by-side through Diagon Alley with fear clenched deep in their gut. Others cried it in shock and utter exasperation, knocking over half-gone glasses of firewhiskey and spirits. Still more let the words out with grief and loss hanging off each syllable. And yet, there were others, others who said it simply, said it with a grin plastered to their face and a bottle of champagne in hand and a white mask on the chair next to them.

Harry Potter was dead. He had yet to turn eighteen.

The Wizarding World was in shambles.

Somehow the death of one boy, not yet a man, had catapulted their entire universe into anarchy and catastrophe. Some wondered how it had been that a teenaged boy had kept their world in order. But apparently he had. Between his untimely demise, and the previous disappearnce, not death, of Hogwarts's Headmaster Dumbledore, the world as they had known it had disappeared.

Well, not yet. But it would. In time.

It has been said, by many and in centuries past, that the winners write the history; the winners are the ones whose story is forever told.

This isn't their story.

This isn't another story telling of the grand adventures of Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. This isn't another story telling a tale of redeemed villains, of men finding salvation in their twenty-fifth hour. This isn't an account of victory nor is it of defeat.

This, this is a story of war.

This is a tale of marked men. This is a tale of their demise.

This is a story where the word "victory" strangely rings hollowlyof "defeat."

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End file.
